To the Editor:

I met Chris Lyddy for the first time shortly after entering middle school. We were in the same “cluster” and I continued to find myself in classrooms with him all the way through graduating Newtown High School in 2001. Many of our extra curriculars overlapped (Pop Warner football, high school musicals, a choir trip to Italy) and like the majority of my classmates I came to see Chris as an unusually mature, capable, and motivated individual. As my high school colleagues and I have moved on to college, grad schools, and our first “real” jobs, Chris continues to be someone that I admired and respect. And I’m voting for Will Rodgers.

I’m certain that Chris sincerely wants to spend his life helping people, and I’m confident that one day he will be a great politician. If the seat was being occupied by an actionless incumbent or there lacked a quality candidate running for the vacant position, it would have made sense in my mind for Chris to step up and ambitiously accept the challenge of running for state office at such an early age. However, when the alternative is a man like Will Rodgers, someone also intelligent and sincere in his efforts to support his community but additionally wealthy in the wisdom that comes along with an additional three decades of life, the idea almost seems conceited.

Chris Lyddy and I are part of a generation raised in a world that was overly nurturing and centered around ourselves. The result is we tend to falter on the rare occasion life forces us to make a decision under pressure for the first time. As a cadet at a notoriously harsh southern military college, several years training as a Marine Corps officer candidate, and losing 22 pounds over five sleepless days while enduring the Navy SEALs infamous “Hellweek,” I’ve observed over and over again how the best products of my generation respond to stress and harsh criticism. I could offer a limitless number of first-hand examples, but let’s suffice it for now to say we’re still figuring out how to deal with it.

Let me speak the obvious. Chris Lyddy is barely out of graduate school. He’s still serving his first term in a minor, local political position and clearly has a political ambition somewhere above being Newtown’s representative in Hartford. I’m sure he feels some satisfaction out of fulfilling his civic duty as a public servant, but at the core of his campaign I can’t help seeing a kid going through the necessary motions to get an “A” on the assignment. It’s easy to be inspired by young enthusiasm, but let’s think for a moment before we pass up on a man who has titles like “lawyer,” “officer of Marines,” and “veteran council chair” on his resume and send someone full of easily impressionable idealism to look after Newtown’s interests. We should be more concerned with the long-term good than simple hype and artificialities.

Brandon Kirch

2088 Regulus Avenue, Virginia Beach, Va.            October 15, 2008